While it's certainly true that solid state drives are smaller, better performing, more reliable, and have been dropping in price faster than a Bible from the Devil's hand, disc drives are still where it's at when it comes to sheer capacity. And capacity counts.

Apple knows this, of course, and while the company probably figured it could switch to flash for its iPhone and iPod touch devices by working in Wi-Fi (the theory being one would stream content instead of storing it permanently on the device) people still like being able to store massive amounts of crap on their mobile devices.

Flash drives simply don't allow for this yet. Sure, you can get a 32-GB flash drive in the laptop, but it's going to set you back $300 dollars for that luxury alone. A 160-GB disc drive, on the other hand, will cost you half as much and give you five times the capacity.

The other thing industry prognosticators often forget is that while solid state drives are dropping in price and increasing in capacity, so too are their hard disc counterparts.

In fact, iSuppli noted just two years ago that the makers of small form-factor hard drives were introducing new products with bigger capacities to serve Apple's needs as fast as the Cupertino company could crank out iPods. Indeed, Apple just doubled the size of the iPod classic, bumping up storage to 160-GB. Why on earth would you do that if you plan on taking away all the storage space in a year's time?

ISuppli's forecast also ignores the types of content people want to watch on mobile devices. If you believe that video (including high-def movies and television shows) is truly migrating towards such devices, then we're certainly going to need some substantial storage options. Solid-state drives are nowhere near meeting those needs.

Mind you, none of this is to say the flash drives aren't someday going to replace disc drives in mobile devices. The trend is certainly underway as we speak. But to say that the HDD has a shelf-life of only 2 or three more years, seems at this point a preposterous…unless something magical happens.